Host:Jules
Huber as "Hoppity Skippity" with his Rabbit Rangers
and (for several years) straight man, Gordon Williamson. Broadcast
live from the WTTG-TV 5
studios
in the Raleigh Hotel,downtown
at 12th Street & Pennsylvania Ave., N.W.

Aired
on WTTG-TV 5,at various
airtimesFrom
November 1948 to December 1956:

"The
Moppet Shop"

(11/19/1948
through Fall 1950)Monday
thru Friday6:00pm
to 6:30pm

(Fall
1950 to ??)Monday
Through Friday?6:45pm
to 7:00pm

"Moppet
Movies"

(Fall
1952 to Fall 1953)Monday
Through Friday?6:30pm
to 6:45pm

"Hoppity
Skippity with Moppet Movies"

(Fall
1953)Monday
thru Friday12:30pm
to 1:00pm and also6:00pm
to 7:00pm

(January
1954 to December 1954)Monday
thru Friday12:30pm
to 1:00pm and also6:00pm
to 6:30pm

(January
1955 to Summer 1955)Monday
thru Friday6:00pm
to 6:30pm

(Fall
1955)Monday
thru Friday6:00pm
to 7:00pm

(January
1956 to 11/16/56)Monday
thru Friday6:00pm
to 6:30pm

"The
Children's Hour"

(Fall
1951 to Fall 1952)Sunday5:30pm
to 6:30pm

(Fall
1952 to Fall 1952)Sunday5:00pm
to 5:30pm

(Fall
1953 to December 1954)Sunday4:30pm
to 5:30pm

"Hoppity
Skippity's Rabbit Rangersjoin
the man-sized real live rabbit starfor
an hour long session of cartoonstrips
and advice from the bunny".

"The
Moppet Shop" whichfeatured
live character"Hoppity
Skippity" wastruly
a pioneer in DCkid's
TV programmingand
a red-hot local hit.

According
to the TVlistings
published in theWashington
Times-Herald,the
show debuted onFriday
November 19, 1948.Up until
that date, WTTGhad
filled the 6:00 to6:30
pm time slot with"The
Small Fry Club"produced
by its'sister
DuMont Networkstation,
WABD-TV 5in New
York City.

Gordon
Williamson, creator/producer/performer, writes: "I
originated the show... at the request of Walter Compton and Roger
Coelos,
manager and program director of WTTG, Channel 5 respectively, who were
concerned that the New York feed of Bob Emery's Small Fry Club
had
little to interest Washington and WTTG audiences.

The reaction
to our show was gratifying. We had no doubt that we carried the
audience
in the 6-6:30 PM time period across the board. Proof of that assumption
came from the fact that we had the 25 local children daily who were
part
of the show, 5 days a week. That's 125 children weekly, [booked] for
more
than a year ahead of time.

Besides
producing the show I performed as 'straight man' for several years with
Jules Huber who was cast as Hoppity Skippity.

We had
regular entertaining guest segments who entertained and never
condescended
or patronized or embarrassed our on-camera guests.

We made
Saturday public appearances in neighborhood theaters and did special
events.
President Truman was instrumental in having the Moppet Shop
awarded
a Patriotism Award by the Veterans of Foreign Wars,
and the National
Congress of Christian and Jews awarded us a Brotherhood
Award.

I left
the show in 1953 in order to move to station management. They carried
on
without me."

Gordon
Williamson and buddy Hoppity Skippity, from the cover of the
DC/Baltimore edition of Teleguide;
the predecessor to TV
Guide
Magazine.

The
year is unknown, but as the caption touts "WTTG's new
children's show", presumably this
December 6th issue contained listings for the week of 12/6/48.

(Photo Courtesy Gordon Williamson)

CLICK
IMAGE FOR A
LARGER VIEW

At
some point during the show's later run, Lee
Reynolds, (creator and on-camera host of "Cap'n
Tugg", "Captain Lee and Mates", and "Grandpa's
Place") would fill-in as director of "Hoppity
Skippity" when
necessary. (The show's regular director at the time was Wes Harris.)

Reynolds
recalls that the bunny star Jules Huber's regular job at WTTG was
advertising
salesman. Before showtime each day, Huber put white clown
makeup
on his face, climbed out of his business suit and into the rabbit suit.

After
ending his run as "Hoppity", Huber moved to WMAL-TV
7 for eighteen years as an off-air Regional Sales Manager. He served in
the same role at WDCA-TV 20
from
1973 until his death from a heart attack on 12/14/74.

Mike Mehalic and his
dummy entertain Hoppity's Rabbit Rangers. Mike appeared weekly on a
different day than Jim Spear's act. (Photo Courtesy Gordon Williamson)

Kathi
Jones Hudson wrote to "Rootsweb":
"We
all remember Pick
Temple, Ranger
Hal, Milt Grant. Who
besides me remembers the
Rabbit? The 6' tall rabbit, on Channel 5, used to face the camera at
the
end of the show, wave goodbye and say 'And remember boys and girls, I'm
a real live bunny rabbit'. My Brownie troop went on the show, I saw the
zipper, it was devastating! Not that I wasn't old enough to
know
that rabbits weren't 6' tall and could talk."

Tom
Hoffman appeared on the show: "When
I was
five or six (which would have been in 1953 or 1954), my mom took me
downtown
to the WTTG studios, probably on the streetcar. I remember the door
having
a big '5' on it. From reading your site, I now realize I was at the
long-defunct
Raleigh Hotel."

Tom continues:
"... I was crowned (or
elected) king for
the
day. Hoppity gave me a paper crown. I proudly kept it on my bedpost for
probably an entire year! It made me feel like a real king, and I hoped
I could be one someday. Was I disappointed when my dad told me that our
country had a president instead of a king! Oh well.
"

Alexandria's
Ralph Bull remembers an early 1950s'
live Hoppity appearance at KC Drug
Store in Kent
Village Shopping Center in Prince George's County:

"This
'rabbit' picked me up and held me for a brief moment, just long enough
to have someone take a photo and post it in the store window at a later
date."

1954
TV Guide Listing (Donated By Ralph Bull)

Steveku
recalls: "I was born in
Washington in
1949.
When I was three, my older sister, another neighbor, and I were
on the Hoppity Skippity show. We watched it every night on
the TV
in the neighbor's apartment upstairs."

"On the
TV screen. it looked like Hoppity was out in the woods. He sat on a
(fake)
tree stump; the kids sat on a (fake) tree that had fallen next to the
stump.
When I was on, there were three of us, the usual number, give or take
one
or two. The back drop was a black and white photo of the woods...
mounted
on a piece of plywood or something. Sitting on the show, I
realized
what this thing really was. I recollect grabbing the side of
this
big piece of plywood and pulling it toward me. Oh my
goodness!
I quickly let it go and it returned to its original position."

"During
the show, Hoppity announced that he was going to be at some store or
somewhere
on the weekend. My mother was there in the studio with us,
sitting
against a wall to the right of us, out of sight of the
cameras. I
yelled over, 'Can we go?'. She nodded yes; probably a little
mortified."

Phil
Wood wrote:"I'm
old enough to remember...Hoppity
Skippity. A guy in arabbit
suit, sponsored byGiant/Heidi,
who had kidson the
show, played gamesand
showed cartoons.

My sister
was on, and asthe
kids were leaving theygot
an assortment of bakedgoods
to take home. My sisterwas
last in line, and they ranout,
so they gave her a boxof peanut
brittle."

"One
day Hoppity announcedhe was
taking a vacation ...but
he never came back.The
show just ended. Theguy
who wore the suit wasa local
broadcaster whoselast
name was Huber...I recall
seeing his obitin the
1970s."

HOLLY HILL -- The path to angry
leads past strip
malls and strip joints. It leads past banks where you can check your
cash and liquor stores where you can cash your check. It leads to a
wooded lot with a SAVE THE LOOP sign in front and a Toyota Prius in a
partially hidden drive.

It
is a long road, 84 years and counting. Toward
the end, your hands can shake uncontrollably and your mind trips over a
detail or two in most conversations. This is where Gordon Williamson
lives, and he's not shy about saying it: "I'm an angry, old man."

Gordon
Williamson is reflected in the wateras he kneels
over his pond to
watch the goldfish in the back yard
of his Holly Hill home. A longtime
environmentalist,
Williamson installed the pond to give wildlife a
place to
congregate because of the destruction of native wetlands.

How
did this veteran of the Pacific Theater in
World War II become so worked up?

It
is a passion that grew from an adventurous
life.

As
a young singer from just outside Baltimore,
he moved to Florida well before Disney, so he could attend Stetson
University in DeLand. In his words, it was a "natural wonderland"
teeming with unique plants and animals in balance with an environment
so clean he could smell the citrus trees.

He
was into his fourth year at Stetson when he
left, joining the Navy in 1944. He saw action and survived several
close calls.

But
when a wave threw him against a boat, he
suffered nerve damage that he believes caused the tremor that slows him
even today.

Back
in the States, he landed jobs at radio
stations in Annapolis and Washington D.C.

Before
long, he was hired on at WTTG, the first
television station in Washington. He started as a booth announcer,
introducing programs, and became an on-air personality, reading news
and playing the straight man alongside a children's show character
named Hoppity Skippity.

"I
even have people come up to me today and say
they remember the show and were devoted fans," he said. "It was fun to
do."

The
era was a pioneering, fun time, and
Williamson was involved in some groundbreaking moments.

For
instance, he can't remember whether it was
1947 or 1948, but he recalls working as a commentator on the first
broadcast from Capitol Hill, a House Armed Services Committee hearing
involving then-Gen. Dwight David Eisenhower.

Williamson
also played Santa Claus and met such
entertainment giants as Louis Armstrong, Frank Sinatra, Bob Hope, Duke
Ellington and Billie Holiday as they visited the station for live,
on-air performances.

Eventually,
he moved into advertising and
executive positions at television stations and ad agencies in
Greensboro, N.C., Charleston, S.C., and Orlando.

But
while television is a sweet spot of memories
for Williamson, it is also a source of sourness.

"I
think it's lost its soul," he said. "It seems
that anything goes and there's so much deception.

"They
can spin something that's not correct into
something the public believes is true."

As
ownership of most television stations has
fallen into the hands of the same seven or eight conglomerates, the
business has lost much of its originality, he said.

He
and wife Natalie Dix, the retired Daytona
Beach News-Journal editorial page editor (who first met Williamson at
Stetson in the 1940s), limit their viewing to mainly news-oriented
programs and Comedy Central's "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart."

Instead,
he spends a lot of time admiring the
mostly wild plants and flowers that provide cover for his home.

"I
believe cutting trees is responsible for
other problems we have today. We bare too much land and it allows the
sun to dry it out and reduces our evaporation."

Politically,
he had embraced the conservative
message of Barry Goldwater in the 1960s, but he returned to Florida in
1970 and his concern for the environment grew. He switched to the
Democratic Party in the late 1980s.

Williamson
volunteered for environmentalist Reid
Hughes, a Democratic candidate for Congress in 1982 and 1990. Hughes
said his background in television and radio was invaluable to his
campaigns, though Hughes lost close races to incumbents both times.

"He
works harder than the rest of us," Hughes
said. "He has been an inspiration to the environmental constituency
with his leadership."

Another
cause Williamson took up was
overpopulation and its societal and environmental effects. For years,
he traveled the state, giving presentations on the problem.

But
the message never seemed to catch on.

"I
think I'm more disillusioned by the human
condition than anything else," he said. "I think I'm frustrated because
in Florida, we're continuing to do the things that are not good for us.

"I'm
a pessimist, I guess, and I hate to be a
pessimist. I look across the world and I see people starving and I see
genocide and what's going on in Iraq and Palestine and I'm frustrated
that I can't do anything about it."

Williamson
insists his anger has little or
nothing to do with his family life. He was married once, and divorced,
and has not spoken to his adopted son for many years.

He
stays busy. He travels and continues
strategizing with groups such as the Volusia-Flagler Environmental
Action Council. He talks about finishing his life story.

In
quiet moments at home, he admires the lizards
he claims drink from a manmade pond he had dug in his backyard in Holly
Hill, an otherwise largely urban city. He watches the koi.

He
notices an air potato vine growing on one of
his palm trees, and thinks to himself, "Gee, I've got to get that taken
care of."